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Ben Hardaway
| birth_place = Missouri | death_date = | death_place = Los Angeles, California | death_cause = | restingplace = | nationality = American | religion = | occupation = Storyboard artist, animator, voice actor, gagman, writer, director | years_active = 1933–1957 | spouse = | children = | imdb_id = | awards = }} Joseph Benson Hardaway (May 21, 1895 – February 5, 1957) was an American storyboard artist, animator, voice actor, gagman, writer and director for several American animation studios during The Golden Age of Hollywood animation. He was sometimes credited as J. B. Hardaway, Ben Hardaway, Buggsy Hardaway and B. Hardaway.IMDb.com Career He started his animation career working for the Kansas City Film Ad Service. He later worked for the Walt Disney Animation Studios and the Ub Iwerks Studio. He was hired by the Leon Schlesinger studio as a gagman for the Friz Freleng unit. He was promoted to director for seven Buddy animated shorts. Afterwards he resumed working as a gagman and storyman.Sigall (2005), p. 66 Storymen started receiving film credits in 1937. His writing credits include Daffy Duck & Egghead and The Penguin Parade.Sigall (2005), p. 66 While at the Schlesinger/Warner Bros. studio during the late 1930s, Hardaway served as a storyman, and co-directed several Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts with Cal Dalton during Friz Freleng's three-year exodus to MGM. Leon Schlesinger needed a replacement for Freleng, and Hardaway's previous experience in the job resulted in his promotion.Sigall (2005), p. 66 In 1938, Hardaway co-directed Porky's Hare Hunt, the first film to feature a rabbit. This as yet unnamed, embryonic rabbit was later named in an early model sheet as "Bugs' Bunny". A new drawing of a redesigned rabbit had been requested by the story department as described by Virgil Ross, the animator of A Wild Hare in an interview published in Animato magazine issue #19.bp2.blogger.com Animator Ben "Bugs" Hardaway inadvertently christened him when "his casual sketch of a proposed rabbit character" was labeled "Bugs's Bunny" by a fellow employee, as described in the Encyclopædia Britannica.britannica.com When Freleng returned to Warner Bros. in 1939, Hardaway was demoted back to storyman,Sigall (2005), p. 69 while Tex Avery eventually created his own rabbit which would later replace Hardaway's Rabbit.MichaelBarrier.com - Funnyworld Revisited: Bob Clampett Interview In 1940, Hardaway joined the staff of Walter Lantz Productions, where he helped Walter Lantz in creating the studio's most famous character, Woody Woodpecker. Hardaway wrote or co-wrote most of the stories for the 1940-1951 Woody Woodpecker shorts, as well as supplying Woody's voice between 1944 and 1949. Notes *Hardaway was also the writer for The Adventures of Pow Wow cartoon series that aired as part of the Captain Kangaroo TV show. *Internet sources claiming that Mel Blanc last voiced Woody Woodpecker in 1941's Pantry Panic and Hardaway started voicing the character in 1942's The Hollywood Matador are incorrect. Blanc's last short was The Screwdriver, while Hardaway would not become Woody's voice until 1944's The Barber of Seville. Woody's voice in Pantry Panic and The Hollywood Matador was actually provided by Danny Webb, while Kent Rogers would voice Woody in the next five cartoons before being killed in a World War II plane crash on July 9, 1944. Sources * References External links * Category:1895 births Category:1957 deaths Category:American male voice actors Category:American male screenwriters Category:Animated film directors Category:Animators from Missouri Category:American animators Category:American television writers Category:Film directors from Missouri Category:Male television writers Category:American storyboard artists Category:Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills) Category:Warner Bros. Cartoons people